Please Join Us as We Celebrate Annexation Law Reform!
StopWoodfin.org community meeting
Saturday, September 17
5:00 - 7:00 PM
Erwin Lions Club
188 Erwin Hills Rd (map)
The steering committee will provide hot dogs, hamburgers and soft drinks.
Please bring a covered side dish or dessert to share.
PLEASE RSVP so we know how much to purchase. Call 259-9160 or email us at stopwoodfin@gmail.com with how many plan to attend.
· Special guest speaker, Rep. Tim Moffitt, will be in attendance and will speak regarding the impacts of the new law, what the future may hold, and "How Things Work in Raleigh."
· We will also have news regarding forced annexations that were in process around the state before the new law came into effect, including Biltmore Lake Community.
· If you have a special event that may be of interest to our community, please let us know. We'd like to make time available for you to give a 1-2 minute presentation. Space is limited. Contact Betty at 259-9160 in advance.
Looking forward to seeing you there!
Don't forget to RSVP!
Annexation Reform is Now Law
As of 12:01 AM on July 1, 2011, the Annexation Reform Act of 2011 (HB 845) has become law. Now property owners have a way to effectively push back against unwanted annexation in our state! Gratitude cannot be sufficiently expressed for the many, many people who have worked hard and stayed the course so we could reach this day.
Interestingly, Governor Perdue neither signed nor vetoed the bill. She just let it pass the deadline and become law. You probably have your personal opinion of what this means to her politically, but we remain thankful for this first step in annexation law reform. It is likely the law will need further work and refinement in the months ahead, and we need to watch to see how the NC League of Municipalities will interpret the new law to their members, as well as watch how municipalities will act.
Thank you SO MUCH for the calls, letters, editorials, emails and personal visits you have made to contribute to this effort! Thank you for the prayers as well as the protests! The pressure from the true grassroots over months and years made a mark not only on our legislators and their political campaigns, but also on our friends, families, and colleagues in the communities around us -- and some had ears to hear and hearts that responded to the cry for justice!
A word of thanks is not undue our legislators. The folks in Wilmington have put together a list of who voted for and against HB 845:
https://sites.google.com/site/no2wilma2/email-campaign
https://sites.google.com/site/no2wilma2/sen-thankyou
Stay tuned to StopWoodfin.org for further developments in the weeks ahead!
MAY 3 UPDATE
Please ask others to get involved too. The practice of forced annexation has been a grievous hurt to all citizens of North Carolina, no matter where they live.
Tell your friends. Post it on Facebook. Twitter.
Phone numbers: http://stopncannexation.com/Contact_House.htm
Many, many thanks!
N
ew Article!Forced Annexation Could Become History in North Carolina
May 02, 2011
RALEIGH — For more than 50 years, rural and suburban residents of North Carolina have been pushed into cities against their will as a result of the state’s involuntary annexation law. The law — which allows cities to annex property and tax residents living outside their borders without the consent of those being annexed — may soon be history, if the Republican majority in the North Carolina General Assembly has its way....
Read the rest of the article:
http://www.carolinajournal.com/exclusives/display_exclusive.html?id=7707
January 2011
As the General Assembly begins their work this session, please join us as we encourage those representatives and senators who are working to stop the practice of forced annexation in North Carolina. Make no mistake! We want nothing less than an end to the abuse of power that local municipal politicians and bureaucrats have wielded against those of us in unincorporated areas of our state. Moratoriums are great, but the sooner we get rid of the 1959 law that allows the municipalities to have unbridled power, the better! This must be our ultimate focus.
Keep in mind, also, that the NC League of Municipalities is working day and night to thwart us. The NCLM, you will remember, has been the largest and most powerful lobbying organization in Raleigh. Guess how they are funded? By the municipal taxpayer. In order to be a member of the NCLM, every town and city in North Carolina sends their citizens' hard-earned tax dollars to this group, whose sole purpose, after funding themselves handsomely, is to bribe, finesse and intimidate local and state elected officials into keeping power out of the hands of the people and in the hands of unelected bureaucrats, lobbyists, and unscrupulous politicians.
Please feel free to send messages of encouragement and thanks to those legislators who are working for us. And for those who have not yet seen the light, please keep shining it in their direction. They could be reminded of the following:
NCGS 160-A-45: “…municipalities are created to provide the governmental services essential for sound urban development and for the protection of health, safety, and welfare in areas being intensively used for residential, commercial, industrial, institutional and governmental purposes…” (emphasis added)
The following table summarizes the problems North Carolinians experience with the manner our current law has been applied across the state. In many cases, forced annexation of an area is accomplished merely as a means to enhance municipal revenue. This is carried out in spite of the fact that areas being annexed already have all the services required by law.
Currently, North Carolina involuntary annexation law requires municipalities to install water and sewer services for newly annexed neighborhoods within two years of the annexation. Besides the fact that there is no enforcement mechanism to ensure this is done, property owners often face tens of thousands of dollars in connection fees for water and sewer they seldom want or need.
Most grievous of all, North Carolina allows municipalities to force the annexation of property with no vote or approval process of any kind by the property owners or by anyone representing them.
| What’s wrong with the current law? | What do we need in law reform? |
| No voice for the people. | 1. A real voice -- we have been ignored and our rights trampled upon for far too long. |
|
Allows for
unwanted
annexation and
taxation without
provision of
meaningful,
necessary
services. In spite of the 1959 law, many municipalities have no obligation at all to provide water or sewer services to the annexed area, even when that is desirable. |
2.
Provision of
meaningful,
necessary
services; not
merely
substitution of
services already
in place.
* It is not meaningful or necessary to substitute city police for county sheriff services. * It is not meaningful or necessary to provide “free” garbage pickup when private services are already easily available. |
| Some municipalities require the forcibly annexed citizens to pay for expensive infrastructure. | 3. If the city wants to annex an area, the city must pay for all infrastructure. |
TO CONTACT your NC representative and senator, click HERE.
ROYAL PINES WINS A REPRIEVE
On October 12, friends and neighbors in Royal Pines won their first fight against forced annexation by the city of Asheville. The south Buncombe neighborhood, along with supporters from outside the area, had come together and worked hard for several weeks to convince Asheville city council to drop the proceedings against their working class community.
While this represents victory at this time for Royal Pines, the truth is that Asheville city council merely postponed the annexation proceedings for a year. Council stated they wanted to see if the economy improves, which is a crystal clear indication that most council members remain convinced that the use of force in annexation is a good way for the city to grow. The bottom line for these members is that forced annexation is a method to increase municipal revenue via taxation without having to provide any essential services to the property owners.
7/7/2010: Where were you a year ago?
On July 7, 2009 many of us were at the Woodfin Community Center, expressing our displeasure at the thought of being forcibly annexed by that town. We were being told by the mayor and aldermen that they had the law on their side, that being forced into Woodfin was a good thing, and that we would like it. And that, oh really, the increased taxes (without any meaningful services provided) weren't so awfully bad.... Most importantly, we learned that we had no bureaucratic or legislative recourse whatsoever, and we had no representation from anywhere.
NEW article on forced annexation by
Daren Bakst:
A Quick and Easy Fix of the
Annexation Law
A little history about forced
annexation
- Before 1947, the NC General Assembly approved all municipal annexation.
- From 1947 to 1959, a change in law allowed municipalities to initiate the annexation of an area, but required the annexation proposal be put to a vote of the people in the area being annexed.
- In 1959, the legislature removed the requirement for a vote and justified it with the extension of water and sewer services to some areas in need of them.
- In spite of opposition from many legislators at the time, the 1959 law delegated all authority directly to the municipalities, without oversight of any kind. Since then, there have been no “checks and balances” in the way that private property is involuntarily annexed to a town or city, thereby giving rise to the term forced annexation.
Currently all power resides with the municipality. No due process is available to citizens who are targeted for unwanted annexation – no vote, no voice at all, no political rights whatsoever. In legal challenges regarding this, the courts have said that “it’s not really the city that is doing the annexing, it is the General Assembly that is annexing via the delegation of power.” Yet time and time again, legislators in Raleigh have refused to become involved in forced annexation battles, saying it is a local, not state, matter. Thus the municipalities and the legislature pass the buck back and forth, and the citizen is left with no representation, and no one to fight for him. There is nothing remotely democratic or just about the practice.
What’s wrong with the current law? |
What do we need in law reform? |
|
No representation or voice for the people. |
1. A real voice -- either a majority vote by the targeted citizens, or by unbiased third party supervision, e.g., a neutral county commission. |
|
Allows for taxation without provision of meaningful, necessary services.
In spite of the 1959 law, many municipalities have no obligation at all to provide water or sewer services to the annexed area, even when that is desirable. |
2. Provision of meaningful, necessary services; not merely substitution of services already in place. * It is not meaningful or necessary to substitute city police for county sheriff services. * It is not meaningful or necessary to provide “free” garbage pickup when inexpensive private services are already easily available. |
|
Some municipalities require the forcibly annexed citizens to pay for expensive infrastructure. |
3. If the city wants to annex an area, the city must pay for infrastructure. |
Unintended Consequences
Fear of unwanted, forced annexation sometimes leads people to form coalitions to try for approval of the incorporation of a new town from the General Assembly. But this can backfire. A case in point: Woodfin, NC was incorporated in 1971, in a defensive move to prevent the area from being forcibly annexed by Asheville. The town’s original founders were very well-intentioned and simply wanted to protect the citizens. However, those people are no longer in office and now, years later, the Town of Woodfin’s Mayor and Board of Aldermen have grand ideas for a “new” town and are practicing forced annexation to fund it. They are “doing unto others what they originally didn’t want done unto themselves.”
Last week we heard from several people who moved to Asheville because of its exciting, vibrant, broadminded segments of the community. I am amazed that a progressive city like Asheville continues to approve of using a repressive tool like forced annexation to try to improve itself. There are far better ways to build a strong community. FORCE is contrary to developing vitality for the City.
Even if the map we’re seeing tonight looks smaller, the use of aggression does not make for good relations with anyone, both inside and outside the city limits.
Is that really what you’re after? I’m sure you mean well, but an undercurrent of ill will is a secondary result, and that kind of sentiment does not go away over time.
Do the citizens of Asheville know how much of their tax dollars is spent on this kind of encroachment on their neighbors in unincorporated areas? My conservative guess is that on the recent activities and trial alone there must have been about a quarter of a million dollars spent. And we wonder why there is a $5 million deficit!
This is folly.
There is a Higher Law than political law – Juris Naturalis, or Natural Law. One of the cardinal rules of natural law is that no one may encroach upon any person or property. This is the basis of freedom versus bondage.
Please don’t be fooled by the League of Municipalities’ arguments that forced annexation is a good way to increase territory. It’s not. It’s barbaric. I’m ashamed that NC is one of the last states in the U.S. to allow this kind of authoritarian measure upon its citizens. Just because that barbaric 1959 law permits it, doesn’t mean that you actually should utilize it.
Asheville is better than that. Please take this cruel implement out of the City’s tool belt.
Merry Christmas from StopWoodfin.org!
StopWoodfin.org Victory!
Many, many thanks to each and every one of you who personally gave of your time, money, sweat, energy and tears to bring this to pass!
We would be remiss, however, not to inject a word of caution into the midst of celebration. The mayor and aldermen of Woodfin still have until October 5th to annex. We think the chances that this would happen are pretty slim, but we cannot ever trust these government officials in Woodfin, and ask you to help us all by keeping your eyes and ears open. We need to be cautious and keep our legal funds in the trust account until the October 5 expiration date of the original Resolution of Intent to Annex has passed. At that time we would like to have a big meeting -- to congratulate each other, celebrate together, and decide what we, as a group, want to do next.
And, unfortunately, the possibility still exists that these people will start up a new resolution of intent to annex at any time in the future. Woodfin and Asheville are now discussing some kind of annexation agreement, so we must continue to remain vigilant.
One thing to discuss with you. The gratitude we have for those who stepped forward and put their hard-earned money on the line is beyond what can be adequately expressed in a simple message like this. That we were able to fund the legal effort and hire attorney Matthew Roberson made a HUGE impact on the outcome we now enjoy. Yes, we put a lot of vocal, political pressure on the Woodfin government, but without the "bite" of having hired a lawyer, they could have just simply ignored us and steamrolled over the top of us because the fact remains that we have no legal rights, no vote, no say of any kind, in the state of North Carolina regarding forced annexation. We hired Mr. Roberson because the way to effectively fight this kind of battle is on technicalities, and Woodfin's errors became apparent through legal discovery.
If this victory is important to those of you who have not made a contribution to our legal fund, please seriously consider doing so now, to share the cost of this expense with your neighbors and friends who have already come forward. Your contribution at this time will make a big difference. Please go the Contribute Now page on this website to donate online via PayPal, or send a check to:
StopWoodfin.org, P.O. Box 1465, Leicester, NC, 28748-1465.
Again, many thanks to all who contributed in the many ways that we worked to bring the Woodfin officials to the point of backing off. We have been an awesome force! All of us on the steering committee are so proud of what we ALL have accomplished together.
With gratitude,
StopWoodfin.org Steering Committee
Dave Blevins, Steve Branstetter, Phil Flack, Stephen Freeby, Myra Fuller, Betty Jackson, Elaine Laufer, Martha Lowe, Carolyn Williams
